This Wireless Outdoor Security Camera Has More Backup Capabilities
When purchasing a wireless outdoor security camera, you need to consider more than just whether it performs like a decent camera—the solar generator should perform well, too, even in less than ideal conditions. In my experience, this is a difficult standard to excel at.
Reolink’s newest model, the Argus 4 Pro ($219.99), is a wireless outdoor camera and solar generator, and I had few complaints in my experience testing it. It supports Wi-Fi 6, provides brilliant color night vision, and doesn’t require a subscription. The app is a bit camera unfriendly and lacks pan and tilt capabilities, but it has a wide enough field of view to compensate. All this and the solar generator does its job.
A pair of eyes
Argus 4 Pro consists of two parts: a camera and a separate solar panel. It’s worth discussing the camera design; it looks like a pair of white plastic eyes installed outside your house. The solar panel comes with a separate mount and plenty of USB cable to connect to the camera, so you can place the panel in an area that gets plenty of sun.
Both the camera and panel are ready to install right out of the box – all you have to do is insert a microSD card (optional and not included) and charge it indoors to give the massive 5,000mAh battery a head start. Of all the outdoor cameras I’ve installed, this was by far the simplest, requiring no complicated connections and using just a few simple plastic brackets.
Several unique features of street cameras
The Reolink app is also easy to set up, and the camera connects quickly on the first try via Bluetooth and then via Wi-Fi; Since it integrates with Google Home and Alexa, I also connected it to my multi-hub in less than a minute.
The Reolink app offers all the standard options I’ve seen on other outdoor cameras—the ability to set a schedule, turn on notifications, and determine the quality of the camera and audio recording—plus three unique features. First, you have the option to set up an FTP address for video backup. This is interesting because the FTP protocol is not encrypted and is easy to hack. (In fact, the app only advises using FTP for your home network.) Second, Argus doesn’t set motion zones, instead opting for “privacy zones” that let you block areas from being recorded (in your recordings, you might see black images instead of boxes for these areas). Finally, you can use the AI feature to determine the size of objects you want the camera to pay attention to, and it will ignore anything smaller or larger. My cameras tend to record a lot of wildlife, so I was able to tell the app to ignore anything smaller than a cat, which greatly reduced the number of unwanted notifications. You can also set it to ignore anything larger than a person, such as a passing truck.
Lots of backup options
Most people’s relationship with their security cameras involves receiving alerts for activities that are unlikely to pose a threat (such as a passing mailman or perhaps a squirrel), and following the notification to view the recorded activity or view the live image. My rating of the camera is mainly based on how fast and reliable its interaction is. Most of the time, I was able to open a clip by clicking the notification, and connecting to live view was quick if I did it regularly. When I left the camera alone for a few days, the live view took about five minutes.
The Argus 4 Pro was less reactive than other cameras in the same position, meaning I wasn’t constantly bothered by non-event alerts such as trees rustling in the wind or people walking outside my main line of sight. The Argus records clips only when motion is detected and stores them via microSD card, FTP, Reolink hub ($99.99), or network-attached storage (NAS). You can also sign up for a cloud storage subscription from Reolink starting at $6 per month for 30GB.
Exceptional video quality and power
Ultra-high-definition 4K video is supported by exceptional color night vision that allows you to record your yard at dawn, even in the darkest hours of the night, and with superior depth of field. The camera does an excellent job of capturing subjects within a 100-foot radius of the camera in high definition.
The solar generator also works well enough even in terrible weather to keep the camera running. Of course, the panel is physically larger than any other camera I’ve tested, and its shape trades form for function.
Slightly awkward app experience
My biggest issue with the Argus 4 Pro is the app experience. As noted, the camera can’t pan or tilt, but the Argus has a 180-degree FOV and a vertical FOV of nearly 50 degrees. This creates a giant landscape field of view, and the company hasn’t quite figured out how to display it well on your phone.
Every time you open the app, you’ll see a small preview if you hold your phone upright, and zooming in with your fingers doesn’t provide the best video quality. You’ll have to hold the phone horizontally to get the most out of the resolution, but when you do, you’ll be stuck with a bunch of video overlay icons that let you use the camera’s intercom and turn the lights on and off. or take a screenshot or video recording. Not ideal.
Bottom Line: Safe Buy
The Argus 4 Pro is an impressive piece of hardware with all the features seen in other leading brands, including high video resolution and good depth of field, long battery life and a good solar panel. It stands out because it offers a wide range of options for backing up your footage without a subscription. Despite some of the app’s shortcomings, it’s a good buy if you’re looking for a stationary camera and don’t care about pan and tilt functions. (However, for about the same amount, you can also get my favorite outdoor wireless camera , the Eufy Solocam ($199.99) , which has an even wider field of view thanks to pan and tilt.)